Amazon misses by a bit, Apple misses by miles.

I live in the tech. world. Unlike many people that write about technology stuff, I have patents.

This alone does not give me super powers, but I do have street cred.

Apple launched a new iMac(?) today with some specs that are circa 2006. A 1.4Ghz i5 mobile processor in a desktop. The mobile i5 1.4Ghz processor has about as much FPU performance as a 2006 Athlon X2 5600+. One can infer that since Intel has not made an all new architecture here, that a 1.4Ghz dual core i5 will deliver FPU performance even lower than the venerated and decrepit old AMD processor. If the "Apple club for poor performance per dollar spent" crowd comes through, they'll eat this thing up. After all, it's a mere 1,100USD.

For that level of performance you can buy a Dell XPS box with a blazingly fast real desktop CPU in a real tower and GPU AND a 24" 1920x1200 IPS panel that will demolish the iMac in any benchmark that anyone cares to throw at both machines. The Dell can often be had very well equipped for 649USD and the monitor for 375USD. The Dell machine will be roughly a billion times faster when performing intensive tasks. Okay, so that's hyperbole. I cannot give you--my gentle reader--an apples to apples comparison, because no i5 processor has ever been delivered with such a low clock speed.

One can state with a fair degree of accuracy that overall system thoughput on the Dell i7-4770 machine will be approximately 4x as fast in multi-threaded applications.

You'd have to love those rotten apples to bite into that fruit.



Amazon misses the boat by 50USD per phone and picks sub-par carrier at launch.

Amazon new Fire Phone. The phone itself seems evolutionary, not revolutionary. 3D phones don't seem to have many advocates. So, the phone is 3D. Sort of a yawn at this juncture. What Amazon failed to do was execute on two fronts. First, they have partnered with ATT which is a disaster in my area. What Amazon should have done was to make the phone available on every carrier. No doubt, ATT is getting major kickbacks for every user that signs up a Fire phone with a 2 year 'agreement.'

Secondly, they missed the price point I said earlier that they had to hit to get penetration. 150USD for the device. This is what you're going to get with your new phone. A provider that has spotty nationwide coverage, a phone with a perverted version of the Android OS, and one year of 'free' Amazon Prime. OH! And 3D that no one's really going to use on a 4.7" screen.

Unlike the new iMac, the Fire phone is at least innovative. Amazon, more than any other tech. co. of late, has been at the fore of newer, better, faster.

The Amazon Fire has millions of built-in users. Still, the phone is hobbled by price sensitivity, and carrier choice.

The iMac should be DOA, but the legions of Apple fans may buy this out of intellectual laziness. It doesn't take a semiconductor engineer to see that this is a set of VASTLY overpriced hardware, in a market where price sensitivity has always been a major concern. The new, slower, cheaper, iMac isn't even a product that loyal Apple eaters should love.